Latest news with #RomaGypsies
Spectator
10 hours ago
- Spectator
Ballymena got what it wanted
Thursday evening. All quiet in Ballymena so far, after three nights of wrath. On the curb of Waring Street – just off Larne Street, which rioters tore through on Tuesday and left burning and beaten – sit James and Casper, both 16. James is wearing a balaclava with a Rottweiler's face printed on the front. Casper wears a hoodie. Opposite the boys, a woman is handing out signs for people to put in their windows which read 'LOCALS LIVE HERE', and down the road, on the corner of Henry Street and Railway Street, a man is pointing his phone at a row of parked police jeeps, and will expectantly livestream this scene to thousands of people on TikTok over the coming hours, as violence is predicted, feared and hoped for, but does not come to pass. The rioting began on Monday 9 June. That morning, two 14-year-old boys appeared in court charged with the attempted rape of a teenage Ballymena girl. They spoke through a Romanian interpreter and word spread that they were Roma Gypsies. As a result, the Ballymenans decided that they wanted all the Roma out of their town immediately. That night, and for two nights after, they attacked Roma homes and the police who defended them. 'It's been mad,' says Casper. 'Petrol bombs going off everywhere. Explosions everywhere. It's honestly hard to explain what's going on anymore.' Most of the violence occurred on seven roads where many Roma lived, and to go there now is to see the United Kingdom as a failed state. Houses are alternately burnt out and boarded up. Windows are fortified with stacks of furniture. 'Roma rapists out' is graffitied on walls. Residents of all nationalities make visual displays of their fealty to the UK with the aim of being spared a petrol bomb through their letterbox. From pretty terraced houses fly Union Jacks and other flags: the red hand of Ulster; the parachute regiment insignia; an NHS logo. These flags are not usually here. The patriotism forced by terror. 'There's really nothing to be worried about if you're local,' says Casper. Everyone in Ballymena says they saw the trouble coming a mile off. In a retail park across from a trashed up Bridge Street, I speak to Neil, a big guy, ex-army. 'This,' he says, 'has been coming for years. This place is swamped with people. People of the Gypsy persuasion. Women couldn't walk the street without feeling intimidated and scared. Three, four, five, six guys, they hang about in groups and gangs. You could see a parent walking down the street with a young girl, and you can see what they're looking at, and it's not the parent, it's the little girls that they're after. And it's not right. People have had enough of them. They really have.' Katie works for the NHS and has a teenage daughter. We talk, and on the road next to us the tarmac is scabbed and deformed from a fire started by the rioters on one of the recent nights. 'Girls have to feel safe in this town again,' she says. 'But I don't want anything to happen to my daughter or her Romanian friends. It's just… There's a certain sort of foreign national… They are very dangerous. It's the way they've been brought up. You can understand why people are so cross. I knew this was going to happen.' I walk through Ballymena with a Filipino man called Leonard who works in a care home. He has two boys, 15 and nine, and is worried that locals will turn on his family. 'I didn't want to go out because of my skin,' he says. He is wearing a cap and sunglasses. 'MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE!' On Friday night I am on West Street in Portadown, 40 miles south of Ballymena, where the wrath has come. Police with dogs are running at us, and we retreat fast. People gathered here at 7 p.m., and at around 10 p.m. a kid turned up with what can only be described as a firework machine gun. He shot it straight at the line of officers. That got things going. Police are trying to block access to a footbridge which connects the western to the eastern part of the town, where illegal immigrants are apparently living in HMOs. Portadown burns, but in Ballymena many people are happy We escape the dogs to a new position in an alleyway between West Street and Union Street. Me and some children. Adults are watching – many have brought drinks and a few are pushing prams with babies – but it's little kids in balaclavas doing the rioting. In the cover of the alley an armoury emerges. The children rip up slabs of pavement and throw them at the ground to make smaller rocks. Twelve-year-olds prepare molotov cocktails and put them in their back pocket. The air stinks of petrol. The kids source more fireworks and share war stories about last night's riot. One child says he was hit by a rubber bullet: 'It's like a fucking dildo hit me at 70 miles an hour!' I wonder how much they care about immigration. And where are their parents? One kid charges at the police for some close-range action. He gets too near and the police grab him. 'Was it Ruben?! Where's Ruben??' say his friends. Away from the frontlines, boys and girls who have made themselves up for this evening of fun are flirting away. 'Did you see the boy with the big firework yesterday?' says a grinning teenage boy. Some high-ranking kid tells the dossers to focus: 'We're on the attack! Guys, come on! Move forward! Do something!' A child unveils another firework machine gun, but accidentally holds it backwards and empties the rockets into the observing crowd. Portadown burns, but in Ballymena many people are happy. I return to the town and cannot find Casper and James, which must be a good sign. There are still riot police around, and on Queen Street a woman is getting her living room window replaced, but the pubs are busy and jolly. At the Railway Tavern they play old loyalist songs on a karaoke machine: Free, free, I just want to be As free as the wind and the rain and the sea. Free, free, I just want to be Out where the rivers run free. Together again, We'll fight as young men, As our forefathers did in the great days of yore.
Mint
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Ballerina: John Wick's world isn't just bullets—It's packed with money lessons too
The world of John Wick is not complete without The Continental, Charon (the inimitable Lance Reddick) and the Manager Winston Scott (the ever so awesome Ian McShane), but we begin with a little girl hiding in a secret passageway behind the bookshelf, clutching a present from her father - a music box where a ballerina dances to Tchaikovsky's beloved tune from Swan Lake. She watches her father fight fierce assassins and the awful man who has come to separate her father and her. She is rescued by Winston Scott who hands her over to Ruska Roma headed by the once beautiful Angelica Huston who is now plain scary. She trains ballerinas - girls who are trained in dance so they can be limber as assassins. This little girl is Eve Maccaro and the training in ballet and the subsequent fights are straight out of every action movie genre where the ordinary hero trains to fight the villain. So you demolish your popcorn and samosas to 'Fight Like a Girl' (Evanescence feat. K-Flay) plays endlessly. Yes, she avenges her father's death and yes, we are rewarded for sitting through a predictable action film by John Wick who makes a grudging appearance. What money lessons do we learn from this tale of revenge? Ballet emphasizes structure, precision and a focus on technique. Anna Pavlova, Margaret Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolph Nureyev are unforgettable stars who made perfection look easy. In the film the Ruska Roma are a fierce group of Roma Gypsies based in Germany who have a seat at 'the Table'. John Wick has been a member of the group. Eve Maccaro is put through practice sessions to achieve perfection. Sharon Duncan Brewster plays one of the trainers who tells Eve: You lose because you allow him (her opponent) to control the narrative. You are a girl, so fight like one. Align conservative ballet to your investment style and you will be investing in low-risk assets like bonds and stable dividend stocks. That's because you want predictable returns rather than high growth. Contemporary ballet incorporates a broader range of movements and interpretations. As an investor in growth stocks you focus on emerging markets, aiming at substantial returns although at a higher risk. After all, Eve actually drives up to the Austrian village of Hallstatt, she knows nothing about and adapts to fighting in an unknown terrain and making the most of it. As soon as her training is over and she begins to earn as a protector, she knows that she has to get that lifelong revenge she wants. She uses her coin at the Continental and then at the armory to get information. The fight at Frank's gun shop reminds you of how you educated yourself about emerging markets before you invested your hard earned money in the high risk, high reward venture. When Eve drives into Hallstatt, she knows she has a fight on her hands, but with every adult resident? Woah! Eve has to use every hammer, dinner plate, vase, chair, door within her reach to kill or maim the cult members who have been ordered to eliminate the 'outsider'. Whether it is in the coffee shop, the kitchen, the armory, or the tunnels underneath the village, Eve uses everything she gets her hands on in the fight at the end. You might shake your head at the water vs. fire as if you were watching a Hollywood version of Brahmastra, but you chuckle when the two women hit each other with plates. Modern ballet is a blend of elements from different ballet styles. As you adjust your portfolio based on the market conditions and changing circumstances, you too are mirroring the modern ballet. Eve Macarro develops a distinct personality through the film. She is so focussed in her endeavor to kill the man who killed her father, even the dangerous Baba Yaga is persuaded to give her until midnight to get her job done. Even though the village is filled to the gills with trained assassins, their chancellor (played by Gabriel Byrne) realises that Eve cannot be controlled and asks Ruska Roma to send in someone to stop her. You will be reminded of Bond villain Blofeld who plays with a white cat when you see the Chancellor pet his black dog when he says, 'Let the wolf kill his prey.' As an investor, when you discover undervalued assets with a potential for future growth, you are like, value investing. Whatever your investing style is, I hope you will be inspired by Ballerina and practice your technique, learn to be flexible, because market conditions change and you have to adjust your strategy much like a dancer who adjusts their movement during a performance. Investing is a long-term process and it is important to enjoy the learning and growth along the way, just as a dancer enjoys the process of mastering their craft. Of course, don't be so carried away by the blood being spilled on the screen that you render your samosa uneatable by dousing them in ketchup. Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer's forum, hosts Mumbai's oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.
